Council incensed over Nagin's crime camera efforts

Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneMore than 250 crime cameras have been installed in New Orleans, but only about 85 are operable.

Days before thousands of citizens marched on City Hall last year in a public outcry about crime, Mayor Ray Nagin held a twilight news conference to outline crime-fighting initiatives.

One key to the plan: The mayor championed crime surveillance cameras as an unassailable witness to help take back the city's neighborhoods.

On that January evening in 2007, Nagin announced that 50 cameras would be operable within a week, with 200 online by the end of the year. It was a modest proposal, scaled down from an earlier pledge of 1,000 cameras.

Even the more modest goal remains elusive.

Since the announcement, much of the Nagin administration's crime camera program has been cloaked in secrecy. City Council members and citizens seeking basic information about the program, such as contracts, have been rebuffed.

As a City Council hearing about the matter began Tuesday morning, the city's technology officer, who is in charge of camera deployment, was nowhere to be found. A note sent to the head of the Public Works committee stated that Anthony Jones -- who had canceled several previously scheduled appearances -- was traveling.

That left two attendees, a police officer and an associate tasked with monitoring the program, to give council members the bad news: Right now, the city has "about 85 cameras that work most of the time."

The announcement incensed some council members.

"I have documented evidence that over 200 cameras would be installed," Councilwoman Stacy Head said. "The press releases are wearing me out. I want to know the truth."

More than 250 cameras have been installed, but only about 85 are operable. In fact, the number of crime cameras working in New Orleans today is about the same as it was pre-Katrina.

Spokespeople for the Nagin administration did not return requests for comment.

There, but not working

Meanwhile, violent crime is occurring under inoperable cameras.

Take the case of 17-year-old Lance Zarders, murdered the night of March 12 in the 1600 block of Frenchmen Street.

A crime camera sits on a pole on the block. It might have captured images of a speeding van or suspects shooting guns. Yet detectives learned that the camera was not working.

The topic came up recently at a NOPD Comstat meeting, during which homicide detectives complained to their superiors.

"What's the deal with these cameras?" one detective said. "They don't work."

The supervisors could not answer.

The camera program is run by the Mayor's Office of Technology. The crime cameras have no relation to traffic cameras recently installed.

Once installed, the police department oversees the crime devices. That role is held by a veteran detective, aided by an assistant paid by the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation.

The head steward, NOPD Detective Mike Carambat, answered a litany of questions from the City Council Tuesday.

With the lights in the council chambers dimmed, Carambat showed a video screen of about 20 live crime cameras. He focused on the corner of Jackson and St. Charles avenues, where a camera showed passing cars and pedestrians.

Councilwoman Stacy Head quizzed him about the case of Robert Strong, 59, who was robbed and shot in the chin at that intersection in November.

The camera did not work at the time, Carambat said. It went back online recently.

Head also asked about the case of an 81-year-old man robbed at gunpoint in April in his front yard at the intersection of First and Carondelet streets.

That camera was not operable, Carambat said.

Carambat did note that a camera on Monday captured a shooting at Second and Dryades streets.

Police officers noticed the camera and asked for the footage.

"They recorded it, burned it to a CD and it's in evidence now," Carambat said.

He reminded council members that police are not involved in setting up the program.

"We are the guys on the street, putting guys in jail," he said.

While council members are upset that their questions about the camera program have gone unanswered, Carambat was able to offer some details.

He said about 250 cameras have been installed, although many are not connected. About 25 are in "hot spots" in Central City.

The cameras are not continually monitored, and staffing issues make real-time monitoring very difficult, he said.

Some cameras are not plugged in and many are not connected to a server, he said.

He said the cameras are designed to record a continuous 72-hour period, so officers who respond to any incident are supposed to report the location.

Carambat talked up one working camera that alerted officers to an "open-air drug bazaar."

"We put a camera up ... and it was like flipping a light switch and watching the roaches scatter," he said.

Plans fall short

Nagin has called crime and public safety a top priority. During the past several years, he has trumpeted the use of crime cameras and offered several plans to blanket the city with the devices.

A report submitted to Nagin during the planning stages of the camera program predicted the cameras would reduce violent crime, but said there is no guarantee.

In 2003, after a jump in crime, Nagin promised 1,000 cameras in the city.

The contract signed at the time called for 240. Nagin vowed that 100 cameras would be up and running by October 2003. They never materialized. At the most, 50 cameras were installed, according to the contractor. The project lay dormant and then the flood struck.

Post-Katrina, Nagin's promise of 200 cameras by the end of 2007 did not match the estimate of the city's chief technology officer, who indicated in e-mail messages obtained by The Times-Picayune that the city planned 155 cameras by year's end, with 75 more slated for 2008.

Even the lower number never materialized.

Councilwoman Shelley Midura said Tuesday that the crime camera issue is emblematic of the Nagin administration.

"They make promises and never follow through," she said.

A NOPD spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Crime surveillance cameras, which have grown popular since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, have gotten mixed reviews. Cities such as Oakland, Calif., have abandoned programs, while others have purchased more cameras.

In New Orleans, crime cameras have factored into very few cases. Last spring, Dalton Savwoir, spokesman for the Orleans Parish district attorney's office, said camera footage was used in two cases in the program's first four years: one a drug trafficking and weapons case, the other a drug case.

Brendan McCarthy can be reached at bmccarthy@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3301.